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Personal adornment

Ornamentation is much more than a matter of esthetics. By choosing a certain kind of jewellery one makes statements as to one's wealth, social status, or religious beliefs. The wealth of a pharaoh, even an insignificant one like Tutankhamen, was of a different order compared with the affluence of a regional official, who himself was infinitely more oppulent than the humble peasant whom he lorded over. Such differences were expressed by, among other means, the exquisiteness of one's adornments, be they jewellery, clothes, wigs, cosmetics, body painting or more permanent body modifications like tattoos and piercings.

People have a propensity to explain their worldly successes as the result of being morally superior, and earning divine favour by pleasing the gods. Beauty has - more wrongly than rightly - always been equated with goodness; in Egyptian nefer (transliteration: nfr) was used for both 'good' and 'beautiful'. Wearing ornaments was a way to improve one's attractiveness in the eyes of both people and the gods.

Statue of Tutankhamen, New KingdomCourtesy Jon Bodsworth

They were symbols of wealth and power, which had to be given up when one was defeated in battle:

Tell if I have concealed from his majesty anything of my father's house: gold [bars (?)], precious stones, vessels of all kinds, armlets, bracelets of gold, necklaces, collars wrought with precious stones, amulets for every limb, headbands, earrings, all royal adornments, all vessels for the king's purification of gold and precious stones

To the ordinary Egyptian they represented savings which did not decay, protection from disease and ill fortune, or a means to impress one's neighbour or win one's love.

The materials used for producing ornaments were varied: shells, stones, clay, pieces of bone, wood, resin, and ivory. Later man-made materials were added to this list: metals like copper, bronze, gold, silver and more rarely lead and iron, faience and glass in many colours. Some of the materials had to be imported, others mined and worked at great expense.

Unlike their neighbours to the south who wore nose and lip studs, the ancient Egyptians seem to have had few body piercings, mostly limited to their ear lobes. The practice seems to have been most popular during the early New Kingdom.

The wesekh (wsx), a broad golden collar, was worn by the pharaohs at the beginning of the 18th dynasty. Later it was conferred by the king on deserving dignitaries as an honorary decoration.
The menat, worn by priestesses of Hathor, was an ornamental collar which also served as a musical instrument:

Collars and necklaces were at times quite heavy. To keep them in place a counterpoise, the mankhet, was at times fastened to them at the back.

Gold collar with counterpoise, Middle Kingdom
Courtesy Jon Bodsworth

Among the jewellery with which the pharaoh was ritually adorned during the Festival of the Earth was a diadem, seshed, a white cloth band, the seshep, the crown of Upper Egypt, the werret, and the mankhet counterpoise. These embued the pharaoh with powers: sight, fertility and life.

Bringing the mankhet, recite: "Pharaoh, l.p.h., is alive, the youth of gold!"

Rituals performed during the confirmation of the royal power at the Festival of the Earth. [2]

Pectorals were worn on the chest as protective amulets. They were often decorated with religious scenes such as Nefer-Hor adoring Isis, Anubis with a flail behind his back, a judgment of the dead, or inscribed with spells:

Words spoken by Thoth, lord of Hermapolis, great god, lord of heaven: May life , prosperity, breath be given to the son of the chief Prophet of Amen, Waskusa, justified son of the chief prophet

Pendants, like pectorals, were often amuletic in character. They were frequently hung around the necks of babies and toddlers, the death-rate of young children being very high and their parents doing all they could to protect them from the evil spirits which killed so many of them.

In later times there is even less evidence of body painting, but the art of facial cosmetics was well developed. The faces of upper class men and women were frequently painted: around the eyes kohl was applied, and red ochre was brushed onto cheeks and lips.

Not all tattoos served as ornaments. Foreign prisoners of war were at times marked, as were at times slaves who had to bear the name of their owner inscribed on their hand. If these people had markings inflicted on them, others chose them for protection:

Now there was upon the shore, as still there is now, a temple of Heracles, in which if any man's slave take refuge
and have the sacred marks set upon him, giving himself over to the god, it is not lawful to lay hands upon him; but this custom has continued still unchanged from the beginning down to my own time.

Herodotus, Histories II: EuterpeGutenberg Project

Schematic view of the tattoos of Amunet, priestess of Hathor, Middle Kingdom [10]

Tattoos, scarification and cicatrization have only been found on a small number of mummies, all of them female. They generally took the form of abstract designs: dots, lines, or more complicated geometrical forms.
The Middle Kingdom Hathor priestess Amunet buried at Deir el-Bahari and two further female mummies found there were liberally tattooed on their arms, shoulders and abdomen. The pigment used was of blackish-blue colour, possibly inserted under the skin with needles made from fish bone or the like.

Lower parts of a pottery figurine with markings on its abdomen,[11]18th dynasty

The practice may have been of Nubian origin and never became widespread in Egypt. The meaning of these abstract tattoos is unknown, though it is often supposed to be connected to female fertility, as no instances of men having undergone the procedure are known.
From the Late Period there is pictorial evidence of tattoos in the form of the god Bes having been made on the thighs of Nubian dancing girls and musicians. It appears that elective tattooing in ancient Egypt was not done for aesthetic purposes alone or even primarily, but had connotations of sexuality and fertility.